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Seven Trees
Honoring the livestock
We spoke with Keizer AA Meats this week and it looks like they'll be out to butcher our steers on December 8th. We approach this day with mixed feelings, because above all we do love our animals and make every effort to ensure they are happy and healthy. Douglas Fir of Seven Trees was conceived here, born here, and will end his life here. He is the only offspring of a purebred Dexter cow, Stella who we no longer own, and it is doubtful as long as we both must work fulltime off farm that we'll have another milk cow again soon. When Douglas and Buddy are gone it will not just be the end of their lives, it ends a cycle here at the farm that will not be repeated again for a long while. It is only appropriate as we close this circle that we make the absolute most of these animals to honor their sacrifice that we may eat meat that we raised with a considerable effort on our own land.
We are keeping Douglas's hide and will be quickly transporting it to Quil Ceda Leather Company in Marysville, Washington where it will be tanned with hair on. We are also thinking of the other products of home butchered animals to make that most people these days never consider, let alone eat or make any more.
One of these is blood sausage or black pudding as it is known in the UK, Blutwurst [Germany], or Boudin Noir [France]. Essentially it is a sausage made with blood cooked with regional fillers like barley, heavy cream, onion, potato, bread, fat, suet or some variation of these items, and then placed in casings to be grilled or boiled in skin and eaten. We'll collect a gallon or two of blood from one of the steers at butcher in a sterile stainless milk pail so we can try making this sausage.
Beef Blood Sausage 1# Leaf Lard10# Onions, diced1 quart heavy creamSalt to tastePepper to taste1 Tbsp Pate spice1/2 gallon beef bloodPork casings
Nordic cultures, Swedes, Finns, etc. aso make something that is known in Swedish as Blodplattar or blood pancakes - click the link for recipe. These are a savory pancake with fresh blood as one of the main ingredients, and are traditionally eaten with lingonberry jam.
We will also keep the tongues, liver, heart, bones for soup, and whatever else we can for either our consumption or to stew up as homemade dog food, which we pressure can and the dogs adore.
While it is rather unsusual for most people to have a hand in the slaughter of the meat they consume these days, it is something we felt it was very important to do. There was no factory in the raising of our meat. Our cattle have lived good lives, they frolicked in the sun, slept in our pastures of green grass, ate until their bellies were full, had shade and shelter from wind/rain/snow, and were treated each day with care and dignity. We will honor all they gave us in sustenance and the pleasure of knowing the food we eat.
We are keeping Douglas's hide and will be quickly transporting it to Quil Ceda Leather Company in Marysville, Washington where it will be tanned with hair on. We are also thinking of the other products of home butchered animals to make that most people these days never consider, let alone eat or make any more.
One of these is blood sausage or black pudding as it is known in the UK, Blutwurst [Germany], or Boudin Noir [France]. Essentially it is a sausage made with blood cooked with regional fillers like barley, heavy cream, onion, potato, bread, fat, suet or some variation of these items, and then placed in casings to be grilled or boiled in skin and eaten. We'll collect a gallon or two of blood from one of the steers at butcher in a sterile stainless milk pail so we can try making this sausage.
Beef Blood Sausage 1# Leaf Lard10# Onions, diced1 quart heavy creamSalt to tastePepper to taste1 Tbsp Pate spice1/2 gallon beef bloodPork casings
Nordic cultures, Swedes, Finns, etc. aso make something that is known in Swedish as Blodplattar or blood pancakes - click the link for recipe. These are a savory pancake with fresh blood as one of the main ingredients, and are traditionally eaten with lingonberry jam.
We will also keep the tongues, liver, heart, bones for soup, and whatever else we can for either our consumption or to stew up as homemade dog food, which we pressure can and the dogs adore.
While it is rather unsusual for most people to have a hand in the slaughter of the meat they consume these days, it is something we felt it was very important to do. There was no factory in the raising of our meat. Our cattle have lived good lives, they frolicked in the sun, slept in our pastures of green grass, ate until their bellies were full, had shade and shelter from wind/rain/snow, and were treated each day with care and dignity. We will honor all they gave us in sustenance and the pleasure of knowing the food we eat.
Categories: Western Blogs
Garlic planting day 2009
We took advantage of the one nice day this week to get our garlic in the ground. In the PNW, mid-Oct to mid-Nov is the time to plant.
The ground is still soft and lush, and we added quite a lot of nearly finished compost to it. Garlic likes to set down roots before the weather really turns, and it's ready to start growing as soon as the days get longer in the spring.
By next July, the 329 cloves we planted will be ready for harvest. This year we're planting Chesnok Red, German Porcelain, and some generic white variety from California.
Stewart must have learned from Gemini! He's got the drive-thru window figured out.
These Sweet Dumpling delicata squash are cute AND tasty! What's not to like?
Even better with teriyaki-grilled London broil and nettle-wild mushroom brown rice. The shroom is our own Prince that we dried last year. He didn't show up this year, but hopefully he'll return soon.
This kettle of cow parts doesn't look too tasty as is, but chopped, sauteed, mixed with carrots, kale and some odds & ends from the freezer.....
.....it makes dog food! And look at our spiffy new pressure canner! An All American #921 cast aluminum and ready for battle....
The ground is still soft and lush, and we added quite a lot of nearly finished compost to it. Garlic likes to set down roots before the weather really turns, and it's ready to start growing as soon as the days get longer in the spring.
By next July, the 329 cloves we planted will be ready for harvest. This year we're planting Chesnok Red, German Porcelain, and some generic white variety from California.
Stewart must have learned from Gemini! He's got the drive-thru window figured out.
These Sweet Dumpling delicata squash are cute AND tasty! What's not to like?
Even better with teriyaki-grilled London broil and nettle-wild mushroom brown rice. The shroom is our own Prince that we dried last year. He didn't show up this year, but hopefully he'll return soon.
This kettle of cow parts doesn't look too tasty as is, but chopped, sauteed, mixed with carrots, kale and some odds & ends from the freezer.....
.....it makes dog food! And look at our spiffy new pressure canner! An All American #921 cast aluminum and ready for battle....
Categories: Western Blogs
Still harvesting!
First off we need to establish a November benchmark for relaxing. Magnus demonstrates his usual style....
Dinner was this wonderful broccoli, cheddar, potato, ham soup, with fresh-baked bread. A great way to enjoy the flavors of our fall harvests. The recipe is here, in case you'd like to try it yourself - Yummy soup recipe
Here's one view of the garden right now. Pretty grim. All the dead squash, tomato & bean vines will make way for our garlic planting later this week. We'll also be tilling in tons (literally) of compost and manure, so next year's garden should be even better.
Another view of the garden, showing how much is still going gangbusters. Broccoli, carrots, chard, lettuce, kohlrabi, soup celery, parsley, green onions, spinach....It's so nice to be eating fresh at this time of year!
The last of the carrots are out of the ground, except for the experimental late planting I did. The apples are from next door, saved from the cider press to be lunch treats. There was one last delicata squash hiding in the garden. I think we've finally gotten them all.
The busy tiny kitchen at Seven Trees. Who knew such a small space would end up being the stage for so much good food. Here are eggs getting dozened-up for customers, canned cider, dried broccoli, and other evidence of harvest activities....We'll be busy the rest of November, getting ready for Doug & Buddy to go to freezer camp. Lots of goodies to process out of the freezer....blackberries to turn into jam, beef offal (liver & hearts) to turn into dog food, and we'll be buying a 2nd small freezer as well............... P.S. Does anyone have any tips for what kind of stuff we can collect when they come to slaughter the cattle? I know people make sausage out of pig blood, but does cow blood work? And how do we process it? We want to make use of anything we can, but I really have no clue what the knackers will leave that is useable. We are planning to have Doug's hide tanned, but haven't found a local tannery yet.....
Dinner was this wonderful broccoli, cheddar, potato, ham soup, with fresh-baked bread. A great way to enjoy the flavors of our fall harvests. The recipe is here, in case you'd like to try it yourself - Yummy soup recipe
Here's one view of the garden right now. Pretty grim. All the dead squash, tomato & bean vines will make way for our garlic planting later this week. We'll also be tilling in tons (literally) of compost and manure, so next year's garden should be even better.
Another view of the garden, showing how much is still going gangbusters. Broccoli, carrots, chard, lettuce, kohlrabi, soup celery, parsley, green onions, spinach....It's so nice to be eating fresh at this time of year!
The last of the carrots are out of the ground, except for the experimental late planting I did. The apples are from next door, saved from the cider press to be lunch treats. There was one last delicata squash hiding in the garden. I think we've finally gotten them all.
The busy tiny kitchen at Seven Trees. Who knew such a small space would end up being the stage for so much good food. Here are eggs getting dozened-up for customers, canned cider, dried broccoli, and other evidence of harvest activities....We'll be busy the rest of November, getting ready for Doug & Buddy to go to freezer camp. Lots of goodies to process out of the freezer....blackberries to turn into jam, beef offal (liver & hearts) to turn into dog food, and we'll be buying a 2nd small freezer as well............... P.S. Does anyone have any tips for what kind of stuff we can collect when they come to slaughter the cattle? I know people make sausage out of pig blood, but does cow blood work? And how do we process it? We want to make use of anything we can, but I really have no clue what the knackers will leave that is useable. We are planning to have Doug's hide tanned, but haven't found a local tannery yet.....
Categories: Western Blogs
In-cider information
It's cider season in Whatcom County! Our neighbors had 33 crates of apples from their trees this year, so we pitched in to help turn them into cider.
Check out this clever work table! The top is made from wood slats, so you can dump your apples or other produce on it and hose them right off. We are definitely going to build one of these for Seven Trees.
Running the crusher is a two-handed job for some of us....a good upper-body workout.
There are little metal teeth inside the hopper that break the apples down enough to make extracting the juice easier. Once the press is full, a wooden board goes on top and a giant screw is turned to force all the juice out. The disk of apple-squishings is called a cheese. The cows got to eat a few wheelbarrows full of the spent apple pulp, which is also known as pomace.
Naturally, we filled a couple of carboys to start some hard cider brewing. We added campden tablets to kill off any wild yeast first. The old-fashioned traditional way is to let the yeast already present on the apples do the fermenting, but this can be unpredictable. We didn't want to take any chances, so we'll use Nottingham ale yeast on one batch, and a wine yeast on another. The ale-yeasted batch we'll bottle carbonated, hopefully with none exploding while they finish fermenting.
We also canned up quite a few quarts to have over the winter. The short processing time pasteurizes the cider, but it still tastes a million times better than anything from the store. Below is a short movie of the crusher in action.
Check out this clever work table! The top is made from wood slats, so you can dump your apples or other produce on it and hose them right off. We are definitely going to build one of these for Seven Trees.
Running the crusher is a two-handed job for some of us....a good upper-body workout.
There are little metal teeth inside the hopper that break the apples down enough to make extracting the juice easier. Once the press is full, a wooden board goes on top and a giant screw is turned to force all the juice out. The disk of apple-squishings is called a cheese. The cows got to eat a few wheelbarrows full of the spent apple pulp, which is also known as pomace.
Naturally, we filled a couple of carboys to start some hard cider brewing. We added campden tablets to kill off any wild yeast first. The old-fashioned traditional way is to let the yeast already present on the apples do the fermenting, but this can be unpredictable. We didn't want to take any chances, so we'll use Nottingham ale yeast on one batch, and a wine yeast on another. The ale-yeasted batch we'll bottle carbonated, hopefully with none exploding while they finish fermenting.
We also canned up quite a few quarts to have over the winter. The short processing time pasteurizes the cider, but it still tastes a million times better than anything from the store. Below is a short movie of the crusher in action.
Categories: Western Blogs
Congee and critters
Look at this lovely use of an old laying hen! The soup above is called congee. Also known as jook and chao ga, it's an Asian version of comforting chicken soup. My personal recipe is this:
One soup chickenOne 'stalk' of lemongrassThree 2" pieces of fresh ginger1.5 cups Jasmine riceCilantroLimeSalt & pepper
Put an old laying hen (previously butchered) into a soup kettle and cover with water. Chop the lemongrass into 1.5" pieces. Scrape most of the peel off the ginger and add. Add salt to taste, maybe 1 tablespoon.Simmer 24 hours on the back burner, not letting it come to a boil.Take out the chicken and remove meat from bones. Strain out lemon grass and ginger.Put chicken meat back in pot and add rice.Bring to a quick boil, then simmer until rice is porridgey. Salt & pepper to taste.
Garnish bowls of congee with chopped cilantro and squeeze a wedge of lime into it. Heavenly!This kind of soup can't be canned, so I freeze it with a squeeze of lime and a sprinkle of cilantro in each container.
Magnus is taking advantage of chilly nights by the woodstove. The squash are in curing before being stored in the pantry for the winter. They like a week or so of warm temps, then they will last for months in the cool dry pantry on a wire rack. The Uncle David Dakota dessert squash are all they're cracked up to be. Highly recommended!
Gemini is obviously starving to death, and needed to come up on the back porch to beg for dried apple slices through the kitchen window.
After a hard day's work at Seven Trees, humans and critters need to relax.....Gemini doesn't really like beer, but he can't help being nosey.
One soup chickenOne 'stalk' of lemongrassThree 2" pieces of fresh ginger1.5 cups Jasmine riceCilantroLimeSalt & pepper
Put an old laying hen (previously butchered) into a soup kettle and cover with water. Chop the lemongrass into 1.5" pieces. Scrape most of the peel off the ginger and add. Add salt to taste, maybe 1 tablespoon.Simmer 24 hours on the back burner, not letting it come to a boil.Take out the chicken and remove meat from bones. Strain out lemon grass and ginger.Put chicken meat back in pot and add rice.Bring to a quick boil, then simmer until rice is porridgey. Salt & pepper to taste.
Garnish bowls of congee with chopped cilantro and squeeze a wedge of lime into it. Heavenly!This kind of soup can't be canned, so I freeze it with a squeeze of lime and a sprinkle of cilantro in each container.
Magnus is taking advantage of chilly nights by the woodstove. The squash are in curing before being stored in the pantry for the winter. They like a week or so of warm temps, then they will last for months in the cool dry pantry on a wire rack. The Uncle David Dakota dessert squash are all they're cracked up to be. Highly recommended!
Gemini is obviously starving to death, and needed to come up on the back porch to beg for dried apple slices through the kitchen window.
After a hard day's work at Seven Trees, humans and critters need to relax.....Gemini doesn't really like beer, but he can't help being nosey.
Categories: Western Blogs
Puca time!
Our berry patch out front usually gives us the first sign of the end of summer. For weeks straight, we're able to pick more berries than fit in the freezer. But eventually a day comes where the berries look good from a distance, but on closer inspection are all funky. Some have slug tracks, some are already rotten and dropping off, and some never really get ripe. We call this "berries gone puca". What the heck is a puca, you ask? The Puca (also spelled Pooka, Puka, Puck) is a supernatural creature mostly associated with Ireland, West Scotland and Wales. It can take a variety of shapes, dog, rabbit, goat or goblin, but a large black horse with glowing golden eyes is the most common form. It has the power of human speech, and legends abound in Ireland of people seeking advice from a Puca, which are probably remnants of pre-christian religious rituals. Pucas are also known to abduct unwary nighttime travellers, taking them for a wild ride, then leaving them unharmed where they were found. An ancient agricultural custom was that any crops left unharvested after Samhain (Oct. 31/Nov. 1) belonged to the Puca, and anyone gathering them would also gather the ill-will of the Puca. Parents would warn their children not to eat these crops by telling them they would make them sick. In many areas people would proactively leave a small portion of their crops in the field, called the Puca's share. If you'd like to read more about this creature, including how one was tamed by Irish high king Brian Boru, check out these links:The PookaTaming the Pooka
Our garden is just about done for the year. We left plenty for the Puca, and still have a lot of broccoli, chard, lettuce, kohlrabi & carrots planted for winter harvesting. Sitting on the gravel pad where the greenhouse used to be is about 20lbs of carrots, and a kohlrabi the size of a bowling ball. Doug & Buddy had fun gnawing on it. After 4 years of trying to integrate the greenhouse into our food production, we decided we could do without it. Four-season gardening is a wonderful thing, but we'd really rather take winters off and eat canned, dried & frozen harvests. The back porch will be mostly enclosed soon and will be an excellent place for seed starting, which is pretty much all we used the greenhouse for. The greenhouse has gone to its new home with our Endorean friends.
Last of the peppers! We pickled all of these, using a fridge-pickle recipe. We noticed that canning them in the hot water bath makes them not keep as well, and with a 2nd fridge in the shop, we have room for them.
Some of the squash have made it inside for their pre-storage heat treatment. They keep longer if they get a week or so in warm temps. When they're done by the woodstove, they'll go on a metal shelving unit in the pantry.
A persistent visitor to the sunflower feeder. I'm not sure if this woodpecker was after seeds or bugs living in the seeds, but it spends a lot of time at Seven Trees.
Our garden is just about done for the year. We left plenty for the Puca, and still have a lot of broccoli, chard, lettuce, kohlrabi & carrots planted for winter harvesting. Sitting on the gravel pad where the greenhouse used to be is about 20lbs of carrots, and a kohlrabi the size of a bowling ball. Doug & Buddy had fun gnawing on it. After 4 years of trying to integrate the greenhouse into our food production, we decided we could do without it. Four-season gardening is a wonderful thing, but we'd really rather take winters off and eat canned, dried & frozen harvests. The back porch will be mostly enclosed soon and will be an excellent place for seed starting, which is pretty much all we used the greenhouse for. The greenhouse has gone to its new home with our Endorean friends.
Last of the peppers! We pickled all of these, using a fridge-pickle recipe. We noticed that canning them in the hot water bath makes them not keep as well, and with a 2nd fridge in the shop, we have room for them.
Some of the squash have made it inside for their pre-storage heat treatment. They keep longer if they get a week or so in warm temps. When they're done by the woodstove, they'll go on a metal shelving unit in the pantry.
A persistent visitor to the sunflower feeder. I'm not sure if this woodpecker was after seeds or bugs living in the seeds, but it spends a lot of time at Seven Trees.
Categories: Western Blogs
Getting ready for winter
It was a breezy weekend in Whatcom County.
There were power outages all over, mostly due to downed trees like this one across the road from us. Our power didn't go out until they turned it off to get rid of the tree, but we still had fun chatting with neighbors and a couple of friendly police officers.
This weekend I also experimented with making roasted vegetable stock that went into a batch of black bean veggie soup that I canned. Here are the raw stock ingredients, ready for roasting. The recipes I used are here: Roasted veggie stock and Black bean soup.
We got a nice pile of maple rounds from one neighbor we bought firewood from, and it's so hard that we had to call for reinforcements to split it. Here's our neighbor to the north, who brought his tractor-driven hydraulic splitter over to help.
And a bit of video showing how powerful the splitter is. We're keeping a couple rounds intact for splitting on, the old fashioned way. We also use a splitting round for peening the scythe on, and killing chickens. Funny how important a chunk of hardwood is to farm functions....
There were power outages all over, mostly due to downed trees like this one across the road from us. Our power didn't go out until they turned it off to get rid of the tree, but we still had fun chatting with neighbors and a couple of friendly police officers.
This weekend I also experimented with making roasted vegetable stock that went into a batch of black bean veggie soup that I canned. Here are the raw stock ingredients, ready for roasting. The recipes I used are here: Roasted veggie stock and Black bean soup.
We got a nice pile of maple rounds from one neighbor we bought firewood from, and it's so hard that we had to call for reinforcements to split it. Here's our neighbor to the north, who brought his tractor-driven hydraulic splitter over to help.
And a bit of video showing how powerful the splitter is. We're keeping a couple rounds intact for splitting on, the old fashioned way. We also use a splitting round for peening the scythe on, and killing chickens. Funny how important a chunk of hardwood is to farm functions....
Categories: Western Blogs
Cabela's Expedition - Lacey, Wa
We undertook the ultimate Sunday expedition yesterday, a pilgrimage to the monumental Cabela's store in Lacey, Washinton. It's at the opposite end of the Salish sea from us about a 2.5 - 3 hour drive one way. We were undaunted, especially with the addition of a friend to accompany us who prefers to be known only as "Ka-Jo Nes". From the history of Cabelas: "Cabela's, the World's Foremost Outfitter of hunting, fishing and outdoor gear, was born somewhat inadvertently in 1961 when Dick Cabela came up with a plan to sell fishing flies he purchased while at a furniture show in Chicago. Upon returning home to Chappell, Nebraska, Dick ran a classified ad in the Casper, Wyoming, newspaper reading: "12 hand-tied flies for $1." It generated one response.
Undaunted, Dick formulated a new plan, rewriting the ad to read "FREE Introductory offer! 5 hand tied Flies....25c Postage....Handling" and placing it in national outdoor magazines. It didn't take long for the orders to begin arriving from sportsmen and women around the country."Back to our story... a nice aside is, it wasn't too far from where J's brother lives, so he and his two kids popped over to meet us for lunch. Here they are checking out our new family member "Big Blue". [J's brother also drives a gorgeous Dodge Ram.]Upon entering the store we were awe-struck, so much so all we could do was immediately find something to fortify us. Here K and J enjoy a 1/2# Buffalo Burger, and a Venison Kielbasa. I opted for the deli sandwich on wheat with thin sliced Wild Boar, provolone, lettuce, tomato, onion and jalapenos. Mmm-mm, fabulous. Really great fries as well. They had a selection of exotic game meats on the menu, which made it especially interesting to eat here.
To shake off the lunch slump, K and I had a friendly competition on the Big Buck Hunter Pro game. Here we are deciding where and what to hunt.
And here we are shooting up the Montana wilderness trying to bag some elk... "shoot the Bucks, not the Does!" K seemed always ahead of me until he removed his sunglasses, and there went his mojo.
K decided this was, "Man, returning the favor," to the rodent population, in this case a Prairie Dog. Did we ever really shop?
Apparently not. Escalators and levitation.
Here I am checking out a New Holland Tractor out front before heading out and enjoying a frosty treat.
What frosty treat you might ask? Snow Ka-Jo Nes!!
Stay tuned... for more riotous shopping adventures!
Undaunted, Dick formulated a new plan, rewriting the ad to read "FREE Introductory offer! 5 hand tied Flies....25c Postage....Handling" and placing it in national outdoor magazines. It didn't take long for the orders to begin arriving from sportsmen and women around the country."Back to our story... a nice aside is, it wasn't too far from where J's brother lives, so he and his two kids popped over to meet us for lunch. Here they are checking out our new family member "Big Blue". [J's brother also drives a gorgeous Dodge Ram.]Upon entering the store we were awe-struck, so much so all we could do was immediately find something to fortify us. Here K and J enjoy a 1/2# Buffalo Burger, and a Venison Kielbasa. I opted for the deli sandwich on wheat with thin sliced Wild Boar, provolone, lettuce, tomato, onion and jalapenos. Mmm-mm, fabulous. Really great fries as well. They had a selection of exotic game meats on the menu, which made it especially interesting to eat here.
To shake off the lunch slump, K and I had a friendly competition on the Big Buck Hunter Pro game. Here we are deciding where and what to hunt.
And here we are shooting up the Montana wilderness trying to bag some elk... "shoot the Bucks, not the Does!" K seemed always ahead of me until he removed his sunglasses, and there went his mojo.
K decided this was, "Man, returning the favor," to the rodent population, in this case a Prairie Dog. Did we ever really shop?
Apparently not. Escalators and levitation.
Here I am checking out a New Holland Tractor out front before heading out and enjoying a frosty treat.
What frosty treat you might ask? Snow Ka-Jo Nes!!
Stay tuned... for more riotous shopping adventures!
Categories: Western Blogs
